


Beyond the End

by mcicioni



Category: Al di là della legge | Beyond the Law (1968)
Genre: Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-03
Updated: 2017-06-03
Packaged: 2018-11-08 13:08:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 739
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11082237
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mcicioni/pseuds/mcicioni
Summary: Joe Billy Cudlip talks with two uninvited visitors.





	Beyond the End

_Here we are again, honourable Sheriff._

Cud.

_Sheriff is more appropriate, even when you’re at home. Why aren’t you wearin your sissy suit and tie today?_

You were a coupla pains in the ass when you were alive, and now you’re even worse. My suit is in the trunk. I wear it on Sundays.

_And on election days. Yours went well, considerin that the other candidate was a brainless stooge of the minin company._

You were there?

_Course we were. You wore your suit at Sally’s weddin as well. She looked beautiful in white. And you and Novak, standing there side by side, looked sweet too._

What the hell were you doin there??

_Hopin that you’d be heartbroken. But you weren’t. Speakin of which, how’s Novak?_

He’s well. Workin on a new ventilation shaft.

_He sure is. We peeked into his office – piles of crumpled up paper all over the floor, and there he was, with his glasses perched on his nose, swearing in his language, tearing drawings up and starting again._

Were you hopin to scare him? To give him a heart attack so he’d come and keep you company? So help me …

_So help you who? A god you never believed in? And anyway, what could you do to us now? More’n what you’ve already done, that is._

Look, you two. You never talk to me when I come and visit you. I pull some weeds, say how sorry I am, say how I wish things had gone different, and there’s not one word from either of you. But you keep turnin up and remindin me of what I did. Is this your revenge? Is it goin to go on until I join you? 

_Answer our question first. If you could go back in time, would you do it all over again?_

Yeah. Because you forced me to choose. Between goin back to stealin and stayin honest.

_Between us and Ben Novak._

Yeah. But the other thing as well. Now you two answer me, there’s somethin I’ve been meanin to ask you, but I’ve always been scared of the answer. Where the … Where _are_ you comin from?

_A place for folks who still got unfinished business with folks who’re still alive. We get to visit them. It ain’t a bad place, there’s interesting people. I talk to Frederick Douglass and Sojourner Truth, when they ain’t visitin former slaveholders._

_Billy the Kid’s more fun, he enjoys checkin on Sheriff Garrett. President Lincoln goes off to talk to John Wilkes Booth now and then. There’s a lady from Georgia, name of Melanie Wilkes, who often goes to chat with an old friend called Scarlett._

The unfinished stuff between us. Will you ever forgive me? Can you ever forgive?

_Where we are, there’s no forgiveness. Or revenge. We just keep visitin the living until they’re ready to make peace with themselves. You made a hard choice, there’s no goin back, amen. We’ve accepted it. You’re gettin there. But you ain’t there yet._

I wish …

_Stop. No point. Hey, we forgot to mention somethin. Since Novak moved in here, this place looks cleaner. Neater. But there ain’t no net curtains at the windows. And no matchin armchairs. Tsk, tsk, tsk._

_He ain’t made a total sissy outta you. Yet._

Shut up, you fools. Hey … you ain’t been peekin around here at night-time, have you? If you have …

_If we have, what’re you going to do? But no, we haven’t. Even we understand the need for privacy._

All right, my mistake. Now I got to go to my office, there’s a bunch of drunken drovers I arrested last night. If they’ve sobered up, I’ll fine them and let them go. So, you two, get lost.

_All right, all right, we know when we ain’t wanted. Next time, we’ll turn up when you’re tendin Julius Caesar in the stable._

Next time … You’re right. I ain’t fully come to terms with what I did to you. And … you’re still a couple of pains in the ass, but I don’t really mind you visitin. Give my regards to Honest Abe.

_And you give ours to Julius Caesar. And Novak. I guess. Even though he shot me in the back. Preacher’s right. You had to make a terrible choice, and so did he._

_He’s been an awful influence on you, but he kinda looks after you. Well, so long, Cud._

See you soon, you old rascals.


End file.
